An autobiographical poem that reflects on the past while looking toward the future, Zima Station (Stantsiya Zima) is a narrative of encounter and discovery told in a strong voice. Inspired by a 1953 visit to Yevtushenko’s family in Siberia, the poem was first published in Octobr in 1956. Although it earned praise and drew attention to Yevtushenko’s distinctive voice and gifts, it was published again only in collections of his verse.

The contemplative tale opens with the speaker asserting that although he is young, he has learned lessons from life; the poem closes with the most important lesson he has learned from his hometown: to love and to go out into the world with the memory of the town and its love.

Michael Pursglove divides the poem into 12 unequal sections. The introductory section, which ends at line 62, presents the little that is known about and asks questions regarding the poet’s Ukrainian great-grandfather, who was exiled to this foreign place, which became home. The second and third sections concern the speaker’s family, and the third part includes a discussion between Childhood and Youth, whom he meets as he walks in the forests where he used to play.

Next, he meets an uncle and aunt who dwell on his life in Moscow, which they imagine as better than it is. The fifth part describes picking berries with the women of the town. One of the peasants dances in the rain with the abandon of Natasha dancing to the balalaika in War and Peace; her unselfconsciousness expresses her Russianness and heightens the persona’s sense of self-consciousness.

After a conversation with the wheat, the speaker talks of the kolkhoz (collective farm) president, Pancratov. (His name brings to mind one of the Eastern Orthodox names for Christ, the Pantocrator, the All-Powerful, and the man’s name seems to be ironic.) The next short section concerns a trip by truck. The poet next considers the poet’s uncles, one of whom is an excellent carpenter but also a drunkard.

At a tea shop, the speaker meets a journalist from Moscow, a stranger whose life had not turned out as he had wished. Sections nine and ten put forth the poet’s meditations on love. As he prepares to leave, he walks through the town, which talks to him in the final section about life and advises him to leave since departure is not final. The speaker moves on and carries the promise with him. In telling his story, he shares the wisdom of Zima Station with the world.

Bibliography

Moser, Charles A., ed. The Cambridge History of Russian Literature. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989.

Pursglove, Michael. “Yevtushenko’s Stantsiya Zima: A Reassessment.” New Zealand Slavonic Journal 2 (1988): 113–127.

Yevtushenko, Yevgeny. “Zima Junction.” In Selected Poems. Translated by Robin Milner-Gulland and Peter Levi, 19–51. Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1962.

Categories: Literature, Russian Literature, World Literature

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